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Hello,
It's now officially Fall, and that can mean
only one thing... get your PCI-Express videocards and Athlon64 chips ready, because things are going
to heat up next month!

In any event, please take
a moment to look
through this weeks PCstats Newsletter; Mike has just finished work on an
excellent guide on Crash Recovery and the
Windows Blue Screen of Death, among several others
listed below... and of course our Weekly PCstats Tech Tip!

A BSOD will strike every Windows PC at least once. PCstats lays out
the ground rules to fixing the problems that can cause a Blue Screen of
Death. Or, you can just reinstall your ENTIRE PC... it's your
choice!

If you've ever used Windows, chances are
you've experienced the lovely shade of blue associated with the famous
Windows Stop Error or 'Blue Screen
of Death.' This frequent, although
less so in newer operating systems, error occurs whenever Windows senses a
software, hardware or driver error which will not allow it to continue
operating properly. In other words, it happens all the
time, for all sorts of reasons. In this article we'll provide you with a set of tools for troubleshooting that you can use to get around any Blue Screen Of Death.
Continue
Here>>

This *not* something for the novice to undertake,
flashing your video card BIOS may lead to performance and feature
enhancements.

We recently ran an article on flashing
(reprogramming) the BIOS of your
motherboard to enable new features and fix errors. That got us thinking
that we'd only covered half the story. Sure, hardware enthusiasts have
been upgrading the
BIOS on
their motherboards for years, but what about the other components of a
computer system? Video cards in particular have
an interesting history in relation to the BIOS flashing procedure.
In this article, PCstats will describe the process of
flashing your video card's
BIOS chip. We cover the potential benefits and risks of the
procedure, as well as specific steps for both ATI and Nvidia cards.
Continue
Here>>

Making a DVD out of your own video files (or home
movies) isn't too hard. In fact, we'll walk you through the task step by
step.

Video cameras have been getting more high-tech, more
capable and more available to the average consumer. The result of this is
that there are a lot of camcorders out there. Despite the advent of new
technology like straight-to-DVD
recording and purely digital storage, the majority of camcorder films
still end up on VHS tape for viewing. Given the imminent death of the VCR
(as soon as recordable
DVD set-top boxes become an affordable item), we feel it's a good time
to get a jump on converting your treasured
home movies to recordable
DVDs. In a recent PCstats.com Beginner's Guide , we explored the process of turning your videotaped home movies into compressed
video files for storage and display on your computer. Continue
Here>>

Hit F8 to
boot your PC in to Safe Mode, and from there..... what? Safe Mode is
a powerful tool for fixing problems in Windows, and finally PCstats
explains how to actually use it In this article, PCstats will explain how
Windows XP's various 'Safe Modes' work, how you access them and how
they can help you troubleshoot various software and operating system
issues. Now, isn't this a handy
topic!? Windows XP safe mode provides you
with a basic graphics driver (enough to display the user interface),
access to your drives and windows configuration, and very little
else.Continue
Here>>

The Gigabyte
GV-NX57128D video card is a PCI Express x16 solution
that is based on the GeForcePCX 5750 GPU. The blue-PCB
card is backed up by 128MB of TSOP-II 3.6ns
Samsung DRAM, and it supports S-Video out, DVI and
analog connections. The card doesn't require any extra
power connectors incidently. In customary Gigabyte
fashion, the GV-NX57128D
videocard comes bundled with an S-Video-to-Composite
converter, good for those of you who plan to hook up
your PC to the computer. Continue
Here>>

The MSI PCX5750-TD128 is a
PCI-Express
x16 solution based on the venerable nVidia
GeForcePCX 5750 core, and comes with 128MB of standard
DDR memory running at 500MHz. Aside from the PCI-E x16
connector on the bottom of the card, it would hard to
tell the PCX5750-TD128 apart from the reference GeForcePCX
5750 AGP videocard. Both feature pretty similar
components, and indeed the GPUs are identical.
Continue
Here>>

The Albatron
Widio Deluxe wireless audio receiver and transmitter is a small glossy
white and green i-Pod sized device which allows users to listen to music
at distances of up to 50m (164 feet) from the audio source.

Albatron's Widio works on a 2.4GHz
wireless signal, and its receiver can also tune into FM radio signals
for those times when you get tired of listening to the same old CDs or
MP3s. Continue
Here>>

PCstats Weekly Tech
Tips: Colours and Desktop Settings

This tip is for system admins. If you're worried about novice computer users downloading spyware and other nuisances onto their machines, why not disable that ability altogether?

Simply load up you Internet Options, then select the Security Tab and click on the Internet icon. From there click the Custom Level button, and that will open up a new Security Settings Window. Now scroll down to the Downloads section, and under File download check the Disable radio box. Click the Ok button, that will prompt you about changing security settings and press Ok again once you get to the Internet Properties window.

When the user tries to download files in the future, Windows will pop up an error message stating that feature has been disabled.

Hey if you visit the PCStats forums, why not post your picture so we can see who we're talking to? [Editor's Note: If you see Colin on the street be sure to say 'hi', as for me, I'll just sit this one out! ;-) ]